Archive By Section - Nation

WASHINGTON (AP) - A later start to the school day could help teenagers get the most from their classroom time and local districts should consider delaying the first bell, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House asserted Sunday that a "common-sense test" dictates the Syrian government is responsible for a chemical weapons attack that President Barack Obama says demands a U.S. military response. But Obama's top aide says the administration lacks "irrefutable, beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence" that skeptical Americans, including lawmakers who will start voting on military action this week, are seeking.

WOODLAND PARK, N.J. (AP) - The public agency that owned the World Trade Center sold its naming rights to a nonprofit more than two decades ago for $10 and now pays thousands of dollars a year to use the name, according to a published report.

MIAMI (AP) - Diana Nyad's 110-mile swim from Cuba to Florida has generated positive publicity and adoration for the 64-year-old endurance athlete - along with skepticism from some members of the small community of marathon swimmers who are questioning whether she accomplished the feat honestly.

STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) - It's a divorce and child visitation case that already has produced nearly 600 motions and rulings and evidence of insider trading that brought down a multibillion-dollar hedge fund.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - A man who held three women for a decade in his Cleveland home said authorities missed an opportunity to catch him in 2004, because his picture should have been captured by a school security camera minutes before he abducted one of his victims, according to interrogation videotapes that became public Friday.

Articles by Section - Nation

CHICAGO (AP) - With virtually no hard proof that medical marijuana benefits sick children, and evidence that it may harm developing brains, the drug should only be used for severely ill kids who have no other treatment option, the nation's most influential pediatricians group says in a new policy.

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - President Barack Obama is proposing to designate the vast majority of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a wilderness area, including its potentially oil-rich coastal plain, drawing an angry response from top state elected officials who see it as a land grab by the federal government.

NEW YORK (AP) - A "potentially historic" storm could dump 2 to 3 feet of snow from northern New Jersey to southern Maine starting Monday, crippling a region that has largely been spared so far this winter, the National Weather Service said.

KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) - Millions of genetically modified mosquitoes could be released in the Florida Keys if British researchers win approval to use the bugs against two extremely painful viral diseases.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Anti-abortion activists attending a march in San Francisco on Saturday offered personal stories about how an abortion negatively affected their lives and expressed renewed hope that the procedure will be outlawed or at least further curtailed now that Republicans are back in control of Congress.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Bowing to privacy concerns, the Obama administration reversed itself Friday, scaling back the release of consumers' personal information from the government's health insurance website to private companies with a commercial interest in the data.

PHOENIX (AP) - A surveillance video that captured the killing of a Phoenix-area convenience store clerk shows the suspect calmly walking behind the counter after pulling the trigger, stepping over the fallen victim and grabbing several packs of Marlboros before slowly exiting.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A Portland thief trying to make a getaway Friday had a hard time seeing his way clear, given that 53-year-old grandmother Tammy Elliott was on the hood of his car, hanging on to the windshield wipers and screaming at him to give back her purse.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Box's shares soared 66 percent in their stock market debut Friday despite the online storage provider's decade-long history of losses, a showing that may encourage more unprofitable technology startups to go public this year.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, the powerful U.S. ally who fought against al-Qaida and sought to modernize the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom, including by nudging open greater opportunities for women, has died. He was 90.